Now For Something Far From Completely Indifferent
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: Obi-Wan ends up offering a little more hands-on comfort than he bargained for.


Author's Notes: Set when Anakin is only about 18 years old. The 'plot' is admittedly a total cliché. The title's a Monty Python reference, obviously. I make no apologies for any of these things.

* * *

Throughout his Padawan years, Obi-Wan had been plagued on and off by a string of illnesses. He remembered how Qui-Gon had suffered through the misery of it nearly as much as Obi-Wan himself had when he'd had to try to push through his sickness during some of their harsher missions. He'd dreaded having to go through much the same with Anakin over the years, but somehow it had never come about. Perhaps it somehow had something to do with the vast number of midichlorians cycling around in Anakin's bloodstream, or maybe it was just more of that same unbelievable good luck that always allowed Anakin to land on his feet when Obi-Wan himself would undoubtedly have fallen flat on his face in the same situations. Whatever the cause, Anakin had never ended up having so much as the slightest sniffle.

Until now, that was.

"I'm dying," Anakin moaned piteously as he plonked himself down on the dusty street, his chest heaving for air.

"As are we all, Padawan, at one rate or another," Obi-Wan pointed out, amused despite his impatience. "But I expect you'll be sticking around for some time yet. Unless, of course, you'd rather stay sprawled out here in the open waiting for those overhead bombers currently heading in our direction?"

"But I can barely even _breathe_, let alone run," Anakin protested. "Really, just leave me here, Master. Save yourself. I'll be joining the Force in no time either way."

"Anakin, honestly," Obi-Wan said, hoisting a rather limp-legged Anakin to his feet with a little assistance from the Force. "What was that you were saying on the flight here about _you_ always having to save _my_ life?"

"Must make a nice change," Anakin joked weakly before nearly falling back to the ground under the force of a coughing fit.

That was true. When he wasn't bowing slightly under the weight of having Obi-Wan's unconscious form slung across his shoulders, Anakin would usually be running ahead, teasing that Obi-Wan must be getting too old to keep up with him. Being the one to support Anakin along instead was certainly a novel experience. But it was one that Obi-Wan decided he had no desire to repeat, for he'd rather avoid ever seeing Anakin feeling so thoroughly wretched if he could help it.

Anakin seemed to be doing even worse by the time Obi-Wan finally got him to the door of the safe house he'd been told awaited them.

"You should... have just let them... drop a bomb on me," Anakin wheezed as "At least that way... I would've gone quickly."

"Come, you're hardly dying. You've been injured much worse than this and managed it fine," Obi-Wan reminded him. He pushed Anakin firmly onto the only mattress in the sparse bedroom. "You're just not used to the feeling of being run down and ill, that's all."

"That can't be it. You know I don't get –" Anakin sneezed, "– sick."

Obi-Wan reached down and pressed his palm against Anakin's burning forehead. "Apparently you do, actually. Though you probably wouldn't have if you hadn't skipped out on your vaccination four months ago," Obi-Wan mused pointedly.

Anakin winced. "I hate needles. Besides, vaccinations are pointless since I _don't get sick_. At all. Ever."

"You can repeat it as many times as you like," Obi-Wan said, "but that's not going to prevent you from going through two or three more days of this and worse, so you might as well just accept it and get on with trying to get better."

"What do you mean, 'worse'?" Anakin asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid this is probably just the beginning. But while Andolian Flu is never pleasant, it's hardly the end of the galaxy. Having this experience might even be good for you, in a way."

Anakin sneezed violently and then grimaced. Obi-Wan tried not to laugh at the expression on his face, but Anakin caught sight of the smile he couldn't quite completely hide. "If you really cared about me at all," Anakin complained, "you wouldn't be acting so casual about my suffering."

Obi-Wan shook his head and laughed outright this time. "Oh Padawan, trust me on this; if I _didn't_ care about you a great deal, I'd simply leave you here to take care of yourself as best you could and be back to pick you up in a few days when you're better. As it is, in many ways this experience is probably going to be worse for me than it is for you. At least you're likely to sleep through most of it."

His words might as well have been prophetic. In less than half a day, Anakin's condition had progressed enough that he was mostly insensible, and was less than cogent even when he did swim back to the surface of consciousness. However, somehow that didn't stop him from lashing out physically or from hurling some particularly interesting phrases at Obi-Wan in Huttese when he tried to lift Anakin out of bed and help him to the 'fresher. He had no plans to try that again anytime soon, to say the least, though it would take a lot more than that to get him to stop trying to ease Anakin's discomfort in other ways.

The only first aid kits in the sector were being utilised for the gravely injured, who had far greater need of such short supplies, but Obi-Wan did still manage to scavenge a simple cold pack from a family holed up in one of the underground bunkers nearby. He quickly returned to the safe house and was careful to enter the bedroom quietly despite knowing that he wouldn't likely fully wake Anakin up in his state with anything short of a twenty piece orchestra.

He pressed the cold pack soothingly against Anakin's heated face and his Padawan moaned and pressed upwards into the apparently welcome source of relief.

"Mmmm, 's so good," Anakin slurred almost unintelligibly. His strangely sensory tone, combined with the way he writhed in place, made Obi-Wan abruptly jerk his hand away in both shock and shame, for nothing about his Padawan being ill and in need should have made his Master's body react quite like _that_.

It was unexpected and unwanted, but he couldn't deny the less than pure thoughts flitting through his brain at that moment. He turned his face away.

There is no passion, Obi-Wan forcibly reminded himself.

Anakin reached up towards him, grasping blindly for the cool relief that had been taken away from him as suddenly as it had been applied. His fingers found Obi-Wan's wrist and slid over his skin gently, obviously searching for the outline of the cold pack. Obi-Wan shuddered, but didn't pull away from the questing digits as they trailed over him, raising the small hairs left in their wake. Obi-Wan continued to allow it when Anakin's hand closed over Obi-Wan's and dragged it back down to Anakin's face, though he tried very hard to ignore it when Anakin's hot lips brushed unknowingly over his knuckles.

The cold pack, still clenched in Obi-Wan's fist, was pulled down further, and Obi-Wan gasped in a breath as he watched his hand be guided across the dips and plains of Anakin's neck – which Obi-Wan could feel was scorching even with the cold offsetting it – towards Anakin's chest.

Obi-Wan was well aware that he should place the cold pack in Anakin's hand and let his semi-conscious instincts deal with cooling himself down alone, but the sight of his own fingers dipping beneath the material of Anakin's loosened tunics, and the feel of the hard muscles of his Padawan's chest...

Since Anakin had grown old enough several years ago to no longer require a hands-on approach to correcting his stance during sparring practices, Obi-Wan had barely ever touched Anakin at all. Oh, there had been the an occasional affectionate squeeze to the shoulder when he'd done something that made Obi-Wan particularly proud, or more frequently the hasty application of pressure to bleeding wounds in the heat of battle, but never anything quite like this. He'd never given any real thought to how physically demonstrative he was, and had certainly been tempted to overstep his boundaries as a Master.

He hadn't known what he was missing, obviously. Now that his hand was actually straying, he couldn't seem to think about anything else.

Anakin moaned again, and this time the sound was undeniably tinged more with pleasure than distress. Obi-Wan reached out with his free hand to card through Anakin's hair, then trailed it unthinkingly down his cheek.

"Oooh yeah," Anakin sighed. "That's it, right there... Padmé..."

That finally brought a little sanity crashing back down, and Obi-Wan retreated clear to the other side of the room, just to be safe.

Fool, he chastised himself. What had he been thinking, practically molesting a boy (though he was really a man by now, his treacherous mind interjected) who was under his care and too delirious to even separate the fantasy clearly playing through his dreams from the reality that Obi-Wan was experiencing. Obi-Wan would be stunned if Anakin had enough wherewithal to remember anything at all about it later, and for his own sake that was probably just as well. After all, how could he ever explain this?

Was he catching Anakin's illness, perhaps? That would certainly explain what had possessed him to act so out of character. Though he had to say that he felt fine other than a strangely empty feeling in his chest, so he presumed that probably wasn't the case. But the only other explanation he could think of was even more unlikely.

Surely... he was closely enough in touch with the Force, and therefore mindful enough of his own feelings, that something so important couldn't have slipped by his notice. Wasn't he?

He should meditate on it, as any proper Jedi would, but it occurred to him that he didn't truly want the answer. If it was true, it would change everything, and certainly not for the better. The Council would insist on Anakin being reassigned to another Master, and that would only be the start of the consequences.

No, better for everyone that he release whatever this was to the Force and try to forget all about it.

During the remainder of the time he was caring for Anakin, Obi-Wan was careful not to linger – or even to allow skin-to-skin contact – when he absolutely had to touch him for one reason or another.

It was a relief in so many ways when after several days Anakin was finally recovered enough to joke, "I think you were wrong, Master. I sure _feel_ like I died after all." Not only was that a sign that Obi-Wan could now leave the most intimate tasks for Anakin himself to take care of from then on, but Obi-Wan also thought that if Anakin recalled anything his first joke would have instead been at his Master's expense.

With his sense of impending doom apparently misplaced, Obi-Wan was happy enough to settle in for the long haul until his Padawan was properly well.

However, as soon as the bombing stopped and it seemed safe enough for them to venture out and try to catch a ride to the capital, Anakin insisted that they get on their way even though he could still barely stand on his own, though he did own his continued weakness enough to voice his frustration at feeling so slow and useless.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Talk to me again about frustration when you have a Padawan of your own to deal with," he muttered.

But despite Anakin's complaint, it didn't escape Obi-Wan's notice how cheerfully Anakin used Obi-Wan as a leaning post. Nor did he miss how Anakin's arm looped lower on Obi-Wan's back than was strictly necessary, and how his fingertips seemed to be stroking patterns just above Obi-Wan's hip. He was hyperaware of all of this – far more than he should be – but he had to conclude that it was all accidental. After all, Anakin might be doing a lot better than he had been a couple of days ago, but he was nonetheless still a little out of it. He couldn't know what he was doing, and he _certainly_ wouldn't have the slightest clue how his actions might be affecting Obi-Wan even if he was aware of them. His Padawan's sickness might not be quite as serious as Anakin had tried to make out, but it still should earn him some slack.

What _did_ completely escape Obi-Wan's notice, though, was the sly smile hovering on Anakin's lips as he 'accidentally' brushed their knees together and sat a little closer than usual on the speeder.

Oh Master, Anakin thought, it serves you right for teasing me first.

Anakin could hardly wait until he could properly respond to Obi-Wan's half-remembered touches. He was intent on making sure Obi-Wan couldn't wait either.

~FIN~

Author's Notes: Angsty AU set sometime during Season 2.

* * *

The Doctor has the power to go anywhere in all of time and space, but right now that means nothing. He knows his desired destination, but he has no specific co-ordinates or even a general direction to aim for. The odds that he could throw the TARDIS into motion and stumble across the right spot are so astronomical that even his brain can't calculate them. His ship, beautiful though she may be, can't work miracles.

The only place he wants to be is wherever Rose Tyler is. He just has no idea how to actually get there.

He's lost her.


End file.
